The World Shapers was the final regular Doctor Who Magazine comic strip to feature the Sixth Doctor. It featured the death of Jamie McCrimmon, a fate which, as of 2016[update], has not been contradicted in any medium. It has also attracted attention because it was written by legendary comic scribe Grant Morrison.
It offered up a story that suggested that the Mondasian Cybermen had arisen from the Voord, something that seemed to conflict with stories such as the audio story Spare Parts. It was an idea that would potentially mean the Cybermen were partially derived from the Terry Nation estate, since Nation created the Voord.

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The Sixth Doctor, Peri Brown and Frobisher follow a distress signal to a watery planet that the Doctor recognises as Marinus, although it is now apparently deserted. The signal is coming from another TARDIS. They find an elderly, dying Time Lord who mutters "Planet 14" before expiring. As he was on his last regeneration, his body breaks down into its constituent molecules, though the Doctor notes that it happened very quickly. The late Time Lord's TARDIS informs them they were sent to Marinus to investigate violent disturbances in the space-time continuum. Frobisher moults rapidly and Peri's hair and fingernails grow; the Doctor notes that time has been accelerated. The mention of Planet 14 jogs the Doctor's memory. He dimly recalls an adventure from his second incarnation. He decides to visit Jamie McCrimmon to see if he would know.

The TARDIS has arrived in Scotland in the 18th century, and the travellers are escorted by Dugald to visit "Mad Jamie", who has been labelled as crazy after the Battle of Culloden, claiming to have visited the moon and stars. Having miscalculated by about 40 years, they've arrived to find Jamie an isolated old man living alone in a run-down shack. Jamie (who had been trained by the Doctor to resist the Time Lords' erasure of his memory) recalls the mention of Planet 14 by the Cyber Controller in their dealings with the Cybermen's attempted invasion of Earth via the London sewers. He begs the Doctor to take him with them, and they depart in the TARDIS before the bewildered eyes of the villagers.

They arrive on Marinus only a week since their departure, but in that time the vast oceans have been drained. They encounter Maxilla, now rapidly aged, gasping for help and claiming that "it's all gone wrong." They turn to find themselves surrounded by a party of Voord, who bear some uncanny resemblances to Cybermen...

They retreat with Maxilla into the safety of the TARDIS. Maxilla tells how the Voord had captured the Worldshaper and used it to rapidly evolve. His partner, Deedrun, was killed in the process, but Maxilla partially shielded himself with a time shield. The Voord are evolving into Cybermen. The Doctor realises the peril the Cybermen would pose with the Worldshaper. He resolves that the machine must be destroyed. Leaving Peri and Frobisher behind in the TARDIS, the Doctor, Jamie and Maxilla home in on the Worldshaper. Maxilla is stunned to find it unguarded, but runs into a protective field surrounding it which ages him to death. Jamie, however, sacrifices his life by plunging his sword into the heart of the Worldshaper. An enormous burst of temporal energy engulfs the entire planet (though the Doctor escapes to the TARDIS), causing millions of years of geological development to pass very quickly. Once it subsides, they emerge from the TARDIS to find a pair of Time Lords waiting for them. The Doctor now recognises the planet as Mondas. The Time Lords order the Doctor and his party to leave, despite the Doctor's insistence they have the chance to stop the Cybermen's development before they can threaten the galaxy.

As the Doctor angrily departs, the Time Lords reflect that in five million years' time, the Cybermen will evolve beyond corporeal form into a disembodied benevolent race, becoming the most peaceful and advanced people in the Universe. They agree that the millions of years of bloodshed in the interim are worth "the ultimate salvation of sentient life."

The Doctor says his memory is vague prior to his second regeneration. This may be an in-joke to the first two Doctors' stories being in black-and-white or to the missing episodes. Most likely, however, this is a reference to Season 6B, which would support Jamie describing events which would seem to set their adventure after The War Games

According to the strip, Jamie was taught a mind-trick by the Second Doctor which allowed him to retain his memories of travelling with the Doctor, despite the attempt to erase them in TV: The War Games.